Idler (Norseton Wolves Book 3) by Holley Trent Page A

slick crotch to it, spreading her arousal against his skin.
    “ Mmm , I see.”
    “I’m an aberration. Do you understand that? I’m not supposed to be like this. It’s not becoming of a female wolf.”
    “I guess I’m an aberration, too. For liking it.”
    “Do you?”
    “ Mm-hmm .”
    “Roll over for me. I know something else you might like.” She eased off his legs, and he carefully rolled. His long, thick shaft curled enticingly against his belly, and she took it into her fist. “I don’t know what happened to you before you ended up in Norseton—”
    He blew out a breath and rolled his gaze to the ceiling.
    “But it’s in the past now, right?”
    “Some things leave scars you can’t see. You only feel the pain when someone pokes at them.”
    “And I poked at them.”
    He shrugged.
    “Don’t shrug. Tell me, so I don’t detonate another land mine. That’s why you’ve been avoiding me, right? Because I poked one of your scars?”
    She unhanded his cock to let him answer unimpeded.
    His Adam’s apple bobbed noticeably as he swallowed again and again, and he pressed his lips into a hard, flat line, as if the taste in his mouth had suddenly gone sour and it took all the willpower he had to keep down the reflux.
    She could tell him that it was okay, and not to worry about it, but it wasn’t okay. She was used to slowly pushing the limits of her partners in and out of the bedroom, and knew that at some point, there was a place that they both had to break through, whether it be his pain, or some secret confession. She could push Colt further and further to test his tolerance for extremes, but when it came to talking about important things, he was a novice. She’d have to lead by example.
    She lay atop him and propped her chin on his chest, looking down at his face.
    He slung his arm across her back—tentatively, it seemed. He likely didn’t understand what was going on, but he shouldn’t have. There was no real rhyme or reason to it—a far less structured situation than Lisa would have liked, but that seemed to be their norm. Him less focused, her more direct, but both capable of getting things done.
    “A few months ago, I had resigned myself to never having kids or a family of my own, because I didn’t want to perpetuate this wolf shit. I’ve been cynical about it for a long time, but I got to a point where I thought, fuck it .”
    “But you answered the mate call. Did you do that just for your sisters?”
    “Yes.”
    “Last-ditch effort?”
    “I guess it was, and that wasn’t fair for either of us. I came in here assuming that it’d be like everywhere else, and that Alpha wouldn’t know what he was doing—that he wouldn’t be a good enough emissary of the goddess, and wouldn’t know how to make a good match. He knows, though. Adam’s a damn good alpha—a true alpha.”
    “He is.”
    “Once I accepted that, it was easier for me to put my hesitations aside.”
    “About what?”
    “About being someone’s mate. About…making a family within the pack, and not just bringing my own family here.”
    “You want a family?”
    “Do you ?”
    “I haven’t given it much thought. I’d guess that none of the guys had. I don’t think we made an automatic mental leap from mate to children.”
    “You were just thinking about the convenient sex.”
    His bark of laughter nearly vibrated her right off his chest. “Sex, and maybe some help around the house. We’re a bit hopeless, if you haven’t noticed.”
    “I noticed,” she muttered.
    “But that makes us about even, right? You didn’t want a mate so much as someplace to better to go. Is that a fair assessment?”
    “It is, but that’s how so many of these wolf pairings are. No better than arranged marriages, really, and sometimes the couple never really clicks. I want a little more than that if I have to do it.”
    He drummed his fingers along her side, tickling her ribs and starting her squirming atop him. “Seriously? A hard-ass